"I told her I had been concerned only and solely with the question of how she herself would take my disclosure; what she would say, and how she would feel.
"She was silent again.
"'But, Sandie,' she began after a minute or two which were not yet pleasant minutes to either of us,—'I think it was very risky. It's all right, or it will be all right, I believe, soon,—but suppose I had been devotedly in love with you? Suppose it had broken my heart? It hasn't—but suppose it had?'"
"Yes," said Dolly. "You could not know."
"I think I knew," said Mr. Shubrick. "But at any rate, Dolly, I should have done just the same. 'Fais que dois, advienne que pourra,' is a grand old motto, and always safe. I could not marry one woman while I loved another. The question of breaking hearts does not come in. I had no right to marry Christina, even to save her life, if that had been in danger. But happily it was not in danger. She did shed a few tears, but they were not the tears of a broken heart. I told her something like what I have been saying to you.
"'But Dolly!' she said. 'You do not know her, you do not even know her.' That thought seemed to weigh on her mind."
"What could you say to it?" said Dolly.
"I said nothing," Mr. Shubrick answered, smiling. "Then Christina went on to remark that Miss Copley did not know me; and that possibly I had been brave for nothing. I still made no answer; and she declared she saw it in my face, that I was determined it should not be for nothing. She wished me success, she added; but 'Dolly had her own way of looking at things.'"
Dolly could not help laughing.
"So that is my story," Mr. Shubrick concluded.